Malcolm Turnbull delivering a speech about Australia’s emissions achievements at the heads of states’ statements ceremony of the COP21 world climate change conference in Paris.
Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA

Five big developed countries have voluntarily cancelled emission reduction “credits” achieved by overshooting their first Kyoto Protocol greenhouse targets – the same kind of credits Australia is banking to boast it has already “met and beaten” its international pledges.

Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain have announced they will cancel 634.6m tonnes of emission reduction credits they were technically able to count towards their targets for the second Kyoto period, in a bid to overcome what has been described as a giant “hot air” loophole.

Australia, in stark contrast, is banking 128m tonnes of carryover from overshooting its lenient target in the first Kyoto commitment period and using it to be able to claim – as the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, did in his speech to the Paris summit – that it is already on track to meet its second pledge.

“By cancelling surplus units we hope to send a strong positive signal of support for an ambitious global climate agreement here in Paris,” the European nations said in a joint statement.

Deputy chief executive of the Climate Institute Erwin Jackson said the European countries were demonstrating a commitment to actually reduce emissions by cancelling the same kind of credits on which Australia is counting.

“The Australian government has previously committed to do the same. Our current 2020 target is woefully inadequate. Strengthening our 2020 target though cancelling leftover emissions credits would close the gap between what we currently have on the table and what other leading nations doing,” Jackson said.

In the lead-up to the United Nations meeting, Australia’s environment minister, Greg Hunt, announced that Australia had already met its 2020 greenhouse emissions reduction target in large part due to overshooting its first lenient Kyoto target in 2012. (Unlike most developed countries, Australia was allowed to increase its emissions by 8% by that date, an achievement it knew it had already when it signed on to the pledge because it also secured special rules to allow it to count a reduction in land clearing that had already happened.)

Most forecasts show Australia’s actual emissions will rise by 2020. The latest analysis by the research firm RepuTex shows they will rise 4% by 2020 compared with 2000 levels, and 6% compared with today. The government has not yet released its updated actual emission projections.

In the Paris announcement, Germany has also promised to cancel any surplus it achieves in the second commitment period – out to 2020 – and not count it against the longer term targets being pledged in Paris.

The Australian government has promised a longer-term climate pledge of reducing emissions by 26% to 28% by 2030.

Hunt said that overshooting the 2020 target might once again allow Australia to use the accounting rules to “carry over” reductions to help meet the 2030 target.

“The rules haven’t been set, so of course that is an option which Australia would consider,” he said last month.

A spokesman for Hunt said Australia would not be forfeiting its carryover.